Robbie Simpson should have been sent off earlier says Robbo after Antony Kay sees red in Dons win

Published:19:20Saturday 18 August 2012

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MK DONS might find themselves short at the back on Tuesday night after Antony Kay’s red card at the end of their 2-0 win over Oldham, but Karl Robinson says it’s still early days yet.

Goals from Darren Potter and the brilliant Daniel Powell saw off Oldham 2-0 at stadium:mk on Saturday, but the result was marred slightly by ugly scenes at the end which saw Kay – who made his first start for the club – shown a straight red for his involvement in a scrap with Robbie Simpson.

Robinson said after the game that Simpson was lucky to be on the pitch after earlier incidents with other players.

“Simpson should have been sent off three or four minutes before, or half an hour before, or an hour before!” he said. “He has punched out at Darren Potter during the game and went through the back of Luke Chadwick in the first half.

“Antony Kay jumped up, and Simpson has cracked him on the nose – his nose is a mess and there’s blood all over the place.

“He ran back into position and Antony grabbed him by the throat. I cannot condone that, but there was a five second period when the referee should have given a free-kick and he didn’t.

“All I ask for is protection. I think the only tackle that was worthy of a booking was Alan Smith’s, and that was a typical Alan Smith tackle.

“Daniel Powell was man-handled three or four times without punishment. So was Ryan Lowe. People tried to get into Gary MacKenzie’s face and wind him up, and he ended up getting booked for clapping.

“I hope we can all learn from this because in two games, we’ve had eight booked and two sent off, but there hasn’t really been a bad tackle.

“I don’t want players to be done after the offence – that doesn’t mean anything to us. I just want a bit of consistency and protection. When a player leads with his elbow and there’s blood all over the defender’s shirt, and he doesn’t win the ball, it’s a free-kick.

“But we’ve got to tread on eggshells and be respectful to the FA disciplinary panel – we know what they’re like and they’re not going to overturn things.”

After losing Shaun Williams for three weeks through an ankle injury, Stephen Gleeson through a red card against Cheltenham, and now Kay for three games, Robinson will be left short at the back for Tuesday night’s trip to Bournemouth, who drew 1-1 at Portsmouth on the opening day.

But Robinson wasn’t too worried by the aftermath, and believes his side will be in good shape when they get down to Dean Court.

“We’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ll be thin on numbers of a few games but it’s a long season. It’s important to get off to a good start. With a goal either side of half time, it was a thoroughly good performance.

“We looked strong and professional in both halves against one of the best Oldham teams we’ve seen in a long time. We limited their chances and I think it was a very good performance.

“The second goal was excellent. We hit them on the break, that’s why I got so excited – we’d worked on hitting Oldham on the break all week.”

And the Dons boss had nothing but praise for man of the match Powell, who earned his reward courtesy of a magnificent counter-attacking goal in the second half.

Robinson said: “Powell has been incredible this week in training. I spoke to John Gorman last night and said he’d been unplayable all week. I’m just glad he didn’t use it all up! I told the chairman too that he had a goal in him and he’s paid us back.

“It was a fantastic goal – a typically classy MK Dons goal. We broke with pace, quality, precision and ended it with qualify finishing.”